A Lotus Blooms in the End Times: Cosmological Topography and the Tibetan State

The ruler of the central Tibetan state, the Desi Sangyé Gyatso (1653-1705), recognized its capital city of Lhasa as having the radial form of an eight-petaled flower or eight-spoked wheel. This article examines the Desi's writings to reflect on the relationship between symbolically ordered space and cosmology. Scholars have often explained such spaces as representing a cosmological model, assigning that model the role of a static foundation and distancing it from human activity. This Tibetan case is read as evidence for another way of thinking about cosmological topography, namely as a creative process in a self-consciously critical relationship with its encompassing world. At stake is the general question of how humans both inhabit the cosmos and actively participate in ordering it.